> On Thu, Feb 24, 2000 at 11:16:04AM -0500, John Klassa wrote:
> > Instead, Microsoft suffered what Sohn called a ``syn-flood'' attack
> > that disrupts communication between a PC and the Web site server so
> > that the server continually sends requests asking for the visiting
> > computer's identification, devouring its processing capacity.
>
> I don't know the technical details (sigh; first step to becoming a
> manager), but aren't there already pretty effective workarounds to
> work around SYN floods? I know that I was able to enable SYN cookies
> and RST cookies to alleviate the problem more than 3 years ago.
>
> If so, what's the big deal?

Yes, Linux for instance supports SYN cookies that completely eliminates the
problem. Packets will be responded to once and then forgotten.